Former deputy being held on bond in investigation of DeKalb sheriff-elect's death

Posted: Saturday, March 17, 2001

By Associated Press

DECATUR -- A former deputy accused of lying to police investigating the slaying of the DeKalb County sheriff-elect was ordered held on $20,000 bond Friday.

Melvin Duane Walker also faces new charges of filing falsified applications for a firearms permit in DeKalb County and for unemployment benefits in Rockdale County, both in suburban Atlanta.

David Isaiah Ramsey Jr., also accused of lying to police in Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown's killing, surrendered to police Friday and was charged with lying to investigators.

Brown was gunned down outside his Decatur home Dec. 15, just days before he was to be sworn into office. Promising to clean up a department tainted by a history of corruption, Brown had defeated then-Sheriff Sidney Dorsey in a runoff in August.

Authorities have not publicly identified any suspects in Brown's death.

Walker, 36, was employed by the private security company Dorsey ran while serving as sheriff. Investigators have searched the homes of two other men employed by Dorsey, Patrick Cuffy and Paul Skyers, but those men have not been charged.

At Walker's hearing Friday, his attorney, Max Richardson, said Walker did nothing wrong. He said police were pressuring his client to ''get on board.''

''If they want to play these Mickey Mouse games, we'll deal with it,'' Richardson told Judge James Weeks. ''It's spring training. It's baseball season. And this is the squeeze play.''

Ramsey, who returned to Atlanta from St. Croix on Thursday, told WAGA-TV he lived with Cuffy, a former DeKalb sheriff's deputy, for five months. He said police questioned him in December about who was at Cuffy's home at the time Brown was shot.

Devon Edwards, who was arrested Jan. 10 and has identified himself as an associate of Skyers, also is charged with lying to investigators.

Dorsey has denied any role in the slaying and has accused the media and interim Sheriff Thomas Brown, no relation to Derwin Brown, of waging a campaign against him.

This article published in the Athens Daily News on Saturday, March 17, 2001.